The European Parliament's report on reducing inequalities with a special focus on child poverty is an opportunity to look at an extremely important issue. Children are our future, and they deserve our paramount attention.
Unfortunately, rapporteur Inês Cristina Zuber, a member of Parliament's GUE/NGL group, has failed to seize this opportunity to tackle the heart of the problem.
Instead, she has preferred to remain on the surface, with ideologically motivated accusations of austerity measures and liberal policies being to blame for rising inequalities. I cannot support such an approach.
Assisting children in need cannot be about ideology. It should justify targeted and reasonably designed measures that fully respect and comply with subsidiarity and national programmes and strategies.
Our main focus should be on families, as child poverty stems from family poverty. Families in which parents have a low income, are unemployed or single, or large families, are more at risk of poverty and social exclusion.
However, there are considerable differences between countries. For instance, 2012 data from EU statistics on income and living conditions indicates that the AROPE rate - the share of the total population that is at risk of poverty or social exclusion - among single parents ranges from 35 per cent in Denmark to 78 per cent in Bulgaria.
Research shows that the social situation of disadvantaged families is linked not only to the extent of the crisis, but also to how countries responded to it.
This is why we should encourage the European Commission to provide a platform to share best practice within the European semester to tackle this problem.
There are several ways to help poor families. Parliament's EPP group strongly supports active employment measures that make it easier to get a decent job and balance work and family life.
Budget responsibility which could affect social allowances cannot be blamed for all poverty-related problems. Poverty is linked to unemployment and precarious jobs - this is what we should focus on.
Marginalised groups of children also face financial, administrative and other practical barriers to education. In most countries, expenses related to education - especially school supplies - food and transport, are essentially borne by households. It would therefore make sense to direct social benefits to these groups, designed to prevent abuse and ensure efficient redistribution.
Marginalised children should be given priority for school enrolments and there should be a particular emphasis on preventing youths from leaving school early. Education is the only way to save children from poverty in later years, as well as their own children.
Sadly, children who grow up poor tend to still be poor when they themselves become parents. Education and reasonable public measures are the only way to break the vicious cycle.